Dune: what age is it for? 13, alone or with a parent

The codes, for parents

A duke's son arrives on a desert planet that yields the most precious substance in the universe, and discovers his family was sent there to be destroyed.

The lexicon

• The spice (the melange)The substance mined from the sands of Arrakis. It extends life, opens the mind and makes travel between stars possible: without it the empire collapses. That is what everyone is fighting over, and the film explains it only once, very fast.
• Arrakis, or DuneThe desert planet where the film takes place. Two houses take turns mining the spice there, and the original inhabitants were never consulted.
• The FremenThe desert people, who have always lived on Arrakis, reclaim the water of their dead and know the worms. Both warring sides treat them as scenery; that is the mistake the film is about.
• The Bene GesseritAn order of women who have steered the empire for centuries through marriage, education and a voice that can compel. Paul's mother belongs to it, and taught him everything in secret.
• The VoiceA way of speaking that forces obedience. When a line is delivered with a rumble in the sound, that is it: the character has no choice.
• The Kwisatz Haderach / the Lisan al-GaibTwo names for the same expectation: a being who would see the future. The first is the Bene Gesserit's secret project, the second the prophecy the Fremen were given. Paul is suspected of being both.
• Shai-Hulud, the sandwormsThe giant creatures that live under the desert and rise at any regular rhythm. They make the spice, and walking without rhythm is a survival skill.
• The SardaukarThe emperor's soldiers, raised on a prison planet. They chant before they kill and have never lost: their presence in the film means the emperor is in on the plot.
• Atreides and HarkonnenThe two rival houses. The first rules by loyalty, the second by fear; the emperor sets them against each other to weaken both.
• The stillsuitThe suit the Fremen wear: it recycles sweat and urine into drinking water. On Arrakis water is the real currency, and spitting in front of someone is an honour.

How the world works

The story happens ten thousand years from now, yet there is no robot and no artificial intelligence: an ancient war had them banned, which is why humans are trained to calculate, to see and to compel by themselves. The universe is feudal: noble houses, an emperor, oaths, debts of honour. Spaceships do not stop this being a world of lords and vassals. The film stops in the middle of the book. That is not an open ending, it is a half: the story finishes in Dune, part two.

The references

• Frank Herbert's novel, published in 1965, is the best-selling science-fiction book of all time. He wrote it after reporting on the Oregon dunes and how plants hold sand in place.
• The spice stands in for oil and the desert for Arabia: Herbert drew on Middle Eastern history, and Fremen vocabulary borrows heavily from Arabic (Lisan al-Gaib, Shai-Hulud, Mahdi).
• Much of what your children know of science fiction comes partly from here: Star Wars took the desert, the chosen one and the empire; Game of Thrones, the houses destroying each other; video games, the giant worms.
• A David Lynch adaptation exists, from 1984, and another never happened, Jodorowsky's. Herbert himself distrusted his own hero and wrote the sequel to show what a chosen one can cost.

Why they love it

• The idea of a teenager discovering that his destiny was decided before he was born, and not wanting it, speaks directly at fifteen.
• The film takes its time, which is rare: silence, sand and sound matter as much as action, and many young viewers say they feel it before they understand it.
• It is a world you can move into: dozens of terms, houses, a religion, an ecology, and the urge to go and read the book behind it.

Three questions to ask

• The Fremen await a saviour from elsewhere and Paul knows that prophecy was manufactured for him: does he have the right to use it?
• The duke says the desert is not their enemy but the Harkonnen are: who do you think is the more dangerous in this film?
• If water were worth more than money, what would change here?